LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



I [FORCE COLLECTION.] ^ 



^ UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. J 



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THE AUGUSTAN AGE. 



A LECTURE 



A T THE A T H i^ N I A N INSTITUTE 



FEBRUARY, 1831), 



BY CHARL,KS O. MKIC^S, M, « = 






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PHILADELPHIA . 

PRINTED BY ADAM WALDIE, CARPENTER STREET. 

1839. 



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TO PHILIP H. iNICKLIN, ESQ. 

Dear Sir : 

Some time since, I was requested to deliver a Lecture 
tor the Athenian Institute. I selected the Augustan 
Age as a suitable topic; but, as, by a sort of tacit un> 
derstanding, the Lectures ought not to occupy more than 
an hour each, I found myself unable to effect more than 
the presentation of a few sketches relative to the history, 
arts, mariners, and literature of the period. 

I am well aware that the following pages, which com. 
prise the Lecture in question, are hardly worthy of being 
presented to a person of your literary taste and know- 
ledge. Yet, I am unwilling to lose even this trifling 
opportunity of dedicating to you some offering, expres- 
sive of the gratitude and respect with which I am, and 
shall always be, 

Your obliged and faithful servant, 

CH. D. MEIGS. 

Philadelphia, March 1st, 1839. 



LECTURE 



The history of Rome is so closely connected with 
that of the whole course of civilisation, that her institu- 
tions, manners, arts, literature, and political action, must 
ever be classed among the most inteiesting topics that 
appertain to the province of polite letters. Twenty-six 
centuries have already elapsed since the foundations of 
the empire were laid by Romulus on the banks of the 
Tiber ; yet notwithstanding that we live in an age so 
remote, and in a country so distant, whose continent 
even was unknown to their people, we daily enjoy the 
placidam sub libertate quietem, the sweet repose of liberty, 
tempered by laws, whose principles, and almost whose 
very forms, are derived to us from the constitutions of 
the ancient Romans. 

There are no temporal interests greater than those 
which relate to governments ; in them are included all 
others— our national virtue, peace, security— our social 
and individual rights— which all take their complexion 
from the system under which we live. Hence, in addi- 
tion to the motives of a natural and laudable curiosity, 



we have the strong incentives of personal interest to look 
into the history of a people to whom we owe so much, 
and from whom we, in a manner, draw our political and 
social existencco 

The founding of Rome was one of the great eras in 
history. It was the beginning of a State which existed 
from a period seven hundred and fifty years before the 
advent of our Saviour, until its final overthrow by Mahomet 
II., in 1453. Its dominion became so vast, comprehending 
the whole civilised world, and its impression upon the 
political as well as intellectual condition of our race so deep 
—I might say so ineffaceable — that it must ever continue 
to be a subject attractive to the enquiring mind ; nor can 
any part of it be esteemed unworthy of our serious con- 
templation and regard. Let us, therefore, devote the 
lecture this evening to a review of some of the points in 
this " most strange, eventful history" in order, haply, 
to deduce therefrom some reflections applicable to our 
several duties, whether as individuals, or as member© 
and parts of a social compact, whose value and stability 
depend, not upon chance, or a blind fate, but upon 
the intelligent and virtuous action of the parties to the 
contract. 

I shall direct your attention to the Augustan age of 
Rome. By this I do not mean the reign of Octavius 
only ; but rather, the period when the state had acquired 
nearly her largest dimensions ; when the policy of ex- 
tending her conquests was, in a measure, laid aside, and 



the energies of the administration devoted to the pre- 
servation of the actual frontier, and the improvement, 
reform, and embellishment of the interior ; when wealth 
without bounds, and luxury vinequaled, were the fruits 
of her numerous victories ; when the intellectual efforts 
of her orators, poets, historians, and philosophers, were 
most noble and successful ; and, in fine, when a mighty 
revolution of government led to the decline and fall of 
the empire, involving mankind at large in the disasters 
of that signal ruin. 

We cannot read the Roman history without perceiv- 
ing, that while moderation, a universal respect for and 
acquiescence in the action of ihe laws, a firm and intel- 
ligent patriotism, may carry a nation to the heights of 
glory and power; so also luxury, vice, and immorality, 
a contempt of law, and indifference to legislation, will 
ever sap the foundations of society : — for a nation's down- 
fal is the just punishment of her own corruption and 
debasement ; and liberty and law are never compatible 
but with virtue and intelligence. 

Rome was originally governed by kings. An insult 
offered to a virtuous woman was followed by the expul- 
sion of the Tarquins, and the establishment of the re- 
public upon the true principles of a representative and 
responsible government. The Consulship, the Senate, 
the Tribunitian power, and the Commitia, or assem- 
blies of the people — these were the principles which 
carried Rome to so lofty a height. The people loved 



and understood a system which gave them a share in 
the government and a stake in the commonwealth. They 
felt that their officers were but their agents in the great 
transactions of the period ; and they held them respon. 
sible for every violation of law or usage, and for every 
omission of duty. 

In this system, the Consiuls represented the supreme 
executive authority, which was entrusted to their hands 
upon the expulsion of the tyrants — a power at once 
purified and rendered innoxious by the annual recur- 
rence of the elections. 

The Senate was an executive council, endowed with 
the faculty of issuing senatus consults, or ordinances, 
which had the force of law ; and of acting as a court of 
judicature in certain cases. This dangerous and aristo- 
cratic authority, however, was limited and restrained by 
the Tribunitian office, which was a barrier against its en- 
croachments on the rights of the people. The tribunes 
ever sat near the doors of the curia, or senate house, to 
arrest or nullify, by pronouncing the word veto, every 
unlawful or inexpedient act of the senate or the 
consuls. 

Then come the people themselves, divided into tribes, 
and centuries, their names carefully enrolled upon the 
census. When summoned to the forum, to meet in com- 
mitia, or committee of the whole, they determined, by 
their voices, at what was called the rogation, upon the 
validity of every act of their magistrates; and those 



voices were the expression of the nation's irresistible 
will, as to every executive, legislative, or judicial act. 

Having thus obtained the control of their own 
affairs in their earlier day, these people remained rude and 
unpolished, despising the luxuries, arts, and elegance of 
other nations. They lived on simple food and were lightly 
clothed, in order to harden their bodies. Their manners 
were grave and direct, but incorrupt. They possessed 
an indomitable courage, and an invincible attachment to 
their country, for which they bore fatigue, hunger, cold and 
danger, and willingly suffered even death itself. They were 
patterns of obedience and discipline in the armies, and 
gave up, beyond what was needful for sustenance, all 
that they had and were, for the service of the state, for 
which every Roman seemed to be born. They were the 
only really free people ; and their conquests rapidly ex- 
tended on every hand over their neighbouring nations. 

The Romans had subjugated the whole peninsula, as 
well as Sicily and Sardinia, From the Greek colonies of 
the southern Italy they imbibed a taste for philosophy and 
the useful and elegant arts, before despised among them, but 
which had long been cultivated and flourishing in those 
ancient seats of learning and luxury. It was there that 
Pythagoras had established his celebrated school of phi- 
losophy, and filled the land with his sober and obsequious 
disciples, the patterns of a moral and temperate life. 
But there also was the land of the Sybarite, so high- 
bred, luxurious, and effeminate, that he passed a sleep^ 



less night because a folded rose-leaf happened to be left 
on his couch of repose. The country was fertile, highly 
cultivated, and adorned with numerous edifices of the 
most beautiful proportions, and was rich in all the pro- 
ductions of a highly elaborated civilisation ; but the letters, 
arts, and riches of their provinces, while they may have 
softened the manners of the rude republicans from the 
banks of the Tiber, served rather to whet the appetite 
for new and more lucrative victories, than to teach the 
wiser and better lesson of contentment and moderation. 

Next comes the struggle with Carthage. It was fierce, 
desperate, and seemed to be waged, not for victory, but 
for existence itself. The sublime displays of moral 
beauty and strength in which its story abounds, deserve 
to be treasured up as models for the imitation of all free 
people. It was vainly that the energy, skill, and courage 
of Hannibal were employed against the genius of Rome. 
The fatal anathema maranatha, the delenda est CarthagOy 
so often sounded before the Romans, was fulfilled when the 
ploughshare and the salt razed out for ever the very found- 
ations of that great city of Africa, foreshadowing to all 
other nations the sure fate of every unyielding foe of Rome. 

With the conquest of Carthage was acquired all that 
she had gained in Spain. England was already partly 
overrun by the legions, whose terrible ensigns were 
waving over the populous countries of France and the 
Rhine. Northern Italy, Greece, Thessaly, the Islands, 
Asia Minor, and Syria, had fallen under the blows of 



the invincible cohorts; and Egypt, the mother of the 
sciences, the oldest and most renowned seat of civilisa- 
tion, vs^ith her manifold knowledge, her skill in numerous 
arts and manufactures, and her strange, imperishable 
architecture, — brought all these, with an inexhaustible 
agricultural wealth, as she bowed down before a people 
whose name and country had been unknown to her an- 
cient kings, and who appropriated the hoarded treasures 
of so many centuries of civilisation. 

And thus it was, that, from the Irish channel to the 
banks of the Euphrates, and from the African desert 
to the Rhine and the Danube, the nations, and people, 
and kindred, and tongues of so many diverse lands, had 
swelled the tide of the Roman triumphs, knelt in sub- 
mission before the rostra of the consuls, and learned to 
look upon the city of the seven hills as the mistress of 
the nations — the arbitress of the world. 

If, now, you will advert for a moment to the high 
grade of intellectual attainments, and the considerable 
advances in moral science that had given such a just 
pre^-eminence to the Greeks and Egyptians in the pre- 
ceding centuries ; if you will refer to the luxurious and 
magnificent courts of Alexander's successors, scattered 
over the many countries of the East, and in Egypt, now 
included among the possessions of Rome, it will be easy 
for you to perceive, that the softness and voluptuousness of 
the Oriental style, blended with the elegance and finish of 
the Greek manners, would naturally tend towards the great 



8 

Capital, that they would become familiar there ; and that 
the city must therefore have been the seat of an elegance 
and refinement equal at least to whatever we regard as most 
polished, finished, and ornate in society at the present day. 

It could not have been otherwise, (you will agree with 
ine,) if the extension of the supremacy of the republic, 
the introduction of the arts, wealth, and learning of 
foreign nations, and the political power and patronage of 
which she became the dispenser, drew together at Rome 
a population so vast, and caused so great an extension 
of the bounds of the city, as to make us with reason in- 
credulous of the accounts given of its magnitude. 

The population of Europe was perhaps not inferior 
to its present census. One hundred and thirty millions 
obeyed the commands of the senate, while the city alone 
contained more inhabitants than the modern London, 
Her populousness has been variously estimated at from 
two to five millions of persons. 

These people enjoyed the benefits of a careful and 
wise system of agriculture, capable of supporting a 
vast horde of non-producing artisans, soldiers, idlers, and 
domestic slaves. So happily were the measures taken 
for a supply, that a dearth of provisions was rarely 
known. The lands were tilled chiefly by slaves, to 
whom, says M. D'Arnay, the citizens committed every 
toilsome business, reserving to themselves only what 
was reckoned agreeable or honourable. They were so 
numerous as to be counted by thousands and distinguish- 



\ 



ed by nations. A Roman citizen left at his death four 
thousand slaves, to be disposed of according to his last 
will and testament. Several persons in Rome owned twen- 
ty thousand slaves ; while among our southern planters it 
is very rare, indeed, to meet with one who possesses 
more than two hundred. 

In that age there was an active commerce even with 
India, and with the shores of the Baltic, with the west- 
ern and southern nations of Europe, and with Africa; 
while all the ports of the Mediterranean were conve- 
niently open to Italy, which jutted like a great promon- 
tory deep into the sea. 

The land was every where laid open, and made accessi- 
ble by admirable roads, accurately graded. Portions of 
the Appian, Emilian and Flaminian ways still exist in 
good preservation, to attest the more than modern skill 
and fidelity with which they were constructed. These 
roads commenced at the Forum Romanum, where was 
erected a gilded pillar, from whence they radiated to every 
part of the empire. They were regularly marked with 
milestones ; and upon them, at short distances asunder, 
were relays of horses and carriages, for the use of the 
couriers, public characters, or even private persons, who 
could obtain permits for traveling post. To show the 
rate of progress in those days, I shall only say, that 
Julius Caesar, in one of his journeys, reached the Rhone 
in six days from the metropolis, a distance of seven hun- 
dred miles, which could hardly be done in our own 



10 

times. Are not good roads among the most important 
results and signal evidences of a high civilisation 1 

We ought not to lose sight of the influence of the 
armies in developing the civilisation of the people. They 
vyere composed of citizens and auxiliaries. They were 
conducted by officers of the highest intellectual culture ; 
men and youths of the most influential famihes. The 
chiefs were taken from among the consulars, the sena- 
tors, and orators, v^hose names are imperishably inscribed 
on the historic page. They marched over all the coun- 
tries of Europe, carrying every where, with them, the 
light of the capital, and bringing back to Rome and to 
Italy the most precise information as to the geographical 
features and statistical condition of the provinces, — their 
arts, commerce, religion. These generals acquired bound- 
less wealth, which they loved to expend in beautifying 
the countries intrusted to their care, erecting in them tem- 
ples, baths, theatres, bridges and aqueducts; and in con- 
structing roads. Many of the remains of these works, more 
or less perfect, still exist in France, Spain, and England, 
claiming our admiration of labours worthy of the enlight- 
ened administration of a civilised people. They also loved 
to exhibit at home the fruits of their warlike toil, in leading 
up the triumph — that very culmination of glory and 
pride. On these occasions, they brought out to public 
view, plans of cities conquered, or countries reduced ; 
talents of silver and gold; precious stones and orna- 
ments; beautiful statues ; rich paintings ; choice books; 



11 

and even the persons of their royal captives and inferior 
prisoners — a trembling train, dragged from the remotest 
bounds of the stale, of various name and race, to grace 
the car of the triumphant general, add new lustre to his 
glory, and glut the appetite for show of that overgrown 
and luxurious capital. 

As to Rome itself. — The dwellings of the citizens, 
which, in early times, were of the simplest and most 
humble character, and suited to the austere virtue of its 
brave and order-loving people, presented a strong contrast 
to the temples, basilicas, and other public edifices, which 
lent an air of dignity to the whole, not lessened, perhaps, 
by that very contrast. After the Gallic conflagration, 
the style of domestic architecture improved, and Horace 
complains of the decline of the ancient simplicity and 
rigour of manners, evinced in the ostentatious dwellings 
of the citizens, which seemed ambitious to equal the 
fanes and temples of the gods of Rome. 

The streets of the city were paved, and the municipal 
police was excellent, so that prompt and condign punish- 
ment overtook the infractors of law or the violators of the 
public tranquillity. It was admirably drained by vast 
subterranean channels, composed of masonry of the 
most durable description, and which are even still there, 
to attest the grand designs of her public men, and to be 
justly ranked among the wonders of the world. 

Rome was abundantly supplied with water, by means 
of numerous aqueducts, which brought their rivers into 



12 

the city, from a distance of sixty miles in some instances. 
Their channels were supported upon lofty arches, which 
bore them up on high, (Horace says, super imbres, above 
the showers,) over every obstacle of ravine or valley, 
through every obstruction of mountain and rock, to fur- 
nish such a perpetual profusion of the element, that not 
only was there the greatest abundance for domestic pur- 
poses, but the public baths were daily open for the whole 
population at a vile price ; than which nothing could 
more conduce to the public health or more effectually 
promote good manners. A Roman considered his bath 
scarcely less essential to his welfare than his supper. 

As to the ornaments of the city — those things that 
might tend to make it agreeable to the citizens, or attract- 
ive and admirable for strangers. The theatres, circuses, 
and porticoes, were very numerous. These, as well as 
the thermae, fora, and temples of the gods, were encrusted 
with the richest marbles, and some even covered with 
plates of gold. They were clustering with glorious co- 
lumns of marble, and jasper, and sienite, and adorned 
with sculptured tympans, and pediments, and rich 
architraves and friezes. But what shall I say ! The 
miraculous productions of the chisel were there in endless 
profusion. There was the wonder-moving group of the 
Laocoon ; — the dying gladiator — an immortal work, where 
the king of terrors seems ever to stand over his victim, 
quenching under the cold, pale, beautiful marble, the last 
faint promethean glow, which yet he cannot extinguish. 



13 

There, doubtless, stood the Apollo of the Belvidere. You 
cannot come into the presence of that divine statue with- 
out remembering Homer's high sounding lines descrip- 
tive of the god, the 

Aitvi) h KKctyyn, yev&r agyvpaio fiioto. 

The clang of his bow you almost hear, and turn to catch 
the whistle of his shaft as it flies towards the writhing 
Python. The Venus de Medici was there. Shall I 
praise that statue ] it is the peerless and priceless gem 
of art! Many thousands of statues in the city alone 
are said to have so encumbered and obstructed the public 
places, that legal restrictions were passed to prevent their 
erection and dedication except under certain conditions.* 
Italy was filled with them, in her cities and towns, and 
the villas of her wealthy citizens.j- Some forty or fifty 

* Quando pero richiamo alia memoria, che fatto in- 
capace il carapidoglio di piu ammetterne, anzi troppo. 
angusto per la gran quantita. che ve n'erano state poste, 
convenne ad Augusto trasferirle nel Campo Marzo: e 
sotto Claudio ingombrarono si fattamente le strade, i fori, 
e ogni altri parte delle citta, che fu necessario raffrenare 
la licenza dell ambizione con proibire che nissun privato 
potesse porre in avvenire a se stesso I'onore della statua, 
senza permissione del senato, se pure non prendesse a 
fardi nuova, ovvero ristorasse qualche opera publica, &c. 
— Maffei. 

■\ " Nullum publicum opus quodcunque nomines ; nul- 
lus adeo locus publicus aut vacuus, ubi non haec orna- 
menta. Et credo equidem nihil magis in tota urbe ad- 

mirandum elegantioribus ingeniis fuisse." " Harum 

statuarum tanta erat frequentia, ut Claudius imperator 



14 

of these wonderful creations of an exquisite taste and a 
surpassing skill, have come down to our times ; and how 
precious they are, those of you well know, who have 
seen with what sort of almost religious care they are 
preserved in the palaces and museums of the potentates 
of Europe. If you will look over Visconti's Icongra- 
phie Roraaine, or Rossi's Raccolta de Statue, you will be 
ready to agree with me, that the mere sculpture of Rome 
furnishes us the strongest evidence of the refinement of 
an age abounding with such charming tastes, such de- 
lightful propensities. We are apt to think that our 
beautiful Philadelphia is the Athens of America. We 
have two statues here — one of WilHam Penn, and one of 
Benjamin Franklin — to say the least, neither of them 
admirable ; but there stands in the court of the Academy 
the fragment, the ruins of an antique statue, which, de- 
prived of feet, hands, and even of its head, still is power- 
ful to fill the mind with admiration of the grace and 
beauty of its attitude ; its majestic proportions; its rich, 
yet simple drapery ; a certain air of dignity ; and a repose 
which could only be imparted by the touch of a master. 
How beautiful must have been a city in which tens of 
thousands of statues of bronze, or of the marbles of 
Paros or Pentelicus, composed, perhaps, not a tithe of its 
numerous attractions. 

coercere sit conatus, quia nimia jam copia urbem, vias 
vicos non ornabant, sed stipabant et arctabant." — Lip- 
sius. Roma Illustrata, p. 193 : Lond. 1692. 



15 

Is not a love of the fine arts esteemed among the evi- 
dences of liberal notions 1 and do you not prize among 
these evidences, a discriminating taste and judgment 
concerning paintings ] But those people had paintings 
of Zeuxis, or Parrhasius, or Cydias, which they bought 
at prices beyond what we pay for the works of Titian 
or Lorraine, or the finest pencillings of Rubens or Muril- 
lo. Fifty thousand dollars was the sum that Hortensius 
paid for a single picture by Cydias. How many such 
had he 1 We at least know that the walls of their apart- 
ments were adorned with the most beautiful designs and 
compositions; of brilliant colouring, and admirable deli- 
cacy ; paintings of historical subjects ; centaurs, fauns, 
human figures, birds, animals, and flowersj which, ac- 
cording to Sir W. Gell, an able judge, were at least equal 
to the chef d'oeuvres of modern artists. 

As to their furniture and decorations, they are models 
which we are glad to imitate. Their chairs, tables, bed- 
steads, and meuble of all sorts, were of the most elabo- 
rated finish, rich in material and tasteful in form ; as 
were their candelabra, lamps, vases, and cabinets. 

The services of plate were costly beyond ours. We 
read of the dinner service of a Roman gentleman, which 
consisted of nine pieces, of silver — the centre one weigh- 
ing five hundred pounds, surrounded by eight others of 
fifty pounds each : and their agents traversed sea and 
land to cater the most luxurious viands, fish, fruits, and 
vegetables, for entertainments exceeding in cost almost 



16 

our powers of belief. One of the Apicii, used to living 
well, opened his veins and died, because having eaten 
his whole estate, saving only a paltry seventy thousand 
pounds sterling, he found he could no longer support 
such a table as became an eminent and enlightened gas- 
tronomer like himself. 

The form and ceremony observed at feasts is, in some 
respects, a measure of politeness ; — savages eat like sava- 
ges. At a Roman entertainment, the most piquant dishes 
were regularly announced, and ushered in with a flourish 
of music, as if a king were about to enter, and vpere received 
with suitable expressions of admiration and praise. I 
think it is not very polite to give your guests bad wine, 
and it is extremely polite to give very fine and costly 
sorts at your tables ; but they gave wines 200 years old, 
worth twenty dollars the glass ; and they drank, 
crowned with garlands, and soothed with the notes of 
flutes and hautboys, the precious vintages of Calenus, 
Falernus, and Chios, while fanned by slaves, reposing on 
couches of silk or velvet, the carpets or tesselated pave- 
ments being strewn with blossoms, and in apartments 
dignified with the names of the gods and the heroes ! ! 

In all ages and countries, there is one touchstone of 
civilisation ; — it is an unerring rule. It is the treatment 
of the tender sex. But, in Rome, woman was an equal 
and co-ordinate creature. She received the deference 
and respect of the ruder sex, and participated his society, 
upon terms as liberal as those of modern Europe. Wit- 



17 

ness the revenge of Lueretia, Cornelia's jewels, Portia's 
tenderness, and the goodness of Octavia. Were not 
the noble qualities of those women admired as much 
then, and as much extolled, as they would be at the pre- 
sent day 1 — whence else their immortality in history 1 

The immense wealth enjoyed by private persons, as 
well as by eminent senators and commanders, enabled 
them to indulge their wives and families in the greatest 
luxury of dress, decoration, and enjoyments. A Roman 
lady of distinction was attended by numerous slaves, 
who had a sort of official stations about her person ; as 
is still common for women of rank in Europe. The 
stola, the tunic, the jewels, the head-dresses, the cosme- 
tics, each was committed to the care of an appointed 
slave ; while a council of the most skilful of them sat 
in solemn conclave upon the adjustment of a lock or a 
braid, or the placing of a pin or a jewel.* 

The materials of the female dress are represented to 
us as the very perfection of the loom : the dyes were 
splendid, and the combination and contrast of the colours 
exquisite ; and the texture so fine, that the name, woven 
wind, " ventus textilis,^ was conferred upon some of the 
stuffs that were sold in the shops of Rome. Did not a 
satirical poet accuse the women of appearing in public 
dressed in a linen cloud? alluding to the too great tenuity 
of the fabric. 

* Vid. Meirotto, iiber Sitten und Lebensart der Romer. 

2 



18 

These ladies possessed jewels of great value. One 
of them is spoken of, who owned them to the amount 
of a million of dollars ; such as she received from her 
own family upon her marriage, and carried away again 
when she was divorced. They also had beautiful equi- 
pages of horses and carriages, and the lectica, a sort of 
sedan or palanquin, borne by slaves, painted with brilliant 
colours, and ornamented with gold, and even with gems. 
It is probable that the world never saw a more busy or 
splendid scene than that presented by a principal street in 
Rome, under a fine Italian sky, when crowded with these 
equipages, and thronged with foot passengers, drawn forth 
by the inducements of pleasure or business, into those great 
avenues, lined with lofty houses and temples ; grand, per- 
haps, as the wildest architectural visions of Martin. 

Think of the places of amusement ! Let us look in 
upon that Naumachia. There is a great lake with seve- 
ral large ships riding at anchor.* The shores are sur- 
rounded by a costly pile, where thousands of spectators 
are come to sit down at ease, and witness all the horrors 
of a battle at sea. Those gallies are filled with armed 
men ! and they engage in action with all the rage and 
passion of a real fight. This is no melodrama, for the 
actors are gladiators, trained by the Lanistae to the use of 

* In speaking of the public shows given by Julius 
Csesar, Suetonius, among others, says, that " Navali prselio 
in morem cochleae defosso lacu, biremes ac triremes, 
quadriremesque, Tyrias et ^gyptiae classes, magno 
pugnatorum numero conflixerunt. C. J. Ceesar, cap. 29. 



19 

arms. The swords are sharp, and those quiet waters are 
foaming with the dash of the prow, and reddening with 
the blood shed for the gratification of the spectators.* 

In the Coliseum, (built in a later reign), eighty thou- 
sand spectators were seated according to their respective 
rank, in presence of the consuls, the senate, and the eques- 
trian order. Thither repaired the kings and princes of 
the earth ; and the ambassadors and legates of foreign 
nations. Upon its dreadful arena, ferocious beasts are 
fighting with men scarcely armed. Hundreds of pairs of 
gladiators, for days in succession, renewed the game at 
death, with the mournful salutation, Consul! morituri 
te salutant !! " O consul, the dying salute thee." This 
extraordinary people greeted with the thunder of eighty 
thousand voices a successful thrust, a hoc habet, or a 
skilful fence ; and saved or devoted, by a turn of the 
thumb, the hapless Dacian, or the supple Numidian, 
who came to die on the sands for their inhuman plea- 
sure. If this was civilization, it was at least not hu- 
manity ! but is scarcely more execrable than the Castil- 
lian corrida de toros, or more brutal than the sports of 
the English ring ! ! 

The public offices of religion were very imposing. 
The leading up of the victims crowned with flowers and 
wreaths ; the sacrificial act ; the processions, offerings, 

* The circus Maximus, which could accommodate 
three hundred and fifty thousand persons, was sometimes 
used for the Naumachia. 



20 

prayers and chant of the priests ; the clouds of incense, 
were all fit to strike solemnly upon the imagination, if 
not to soften the heart. A daily host of devotees were 
seen crowding the adita of the lofty temples ; but there 
was no entering in at the sacred cell, and there was no 
Sabbath day in Rome — no stated repose from the cares, 
and vanities, and wickedness of a life — the more disso- 
lute, sensual and devilish, by the inherent tendencies of a 
paganism revolting to the reason and sense of the people, 
who must have despised it utterly in private, while they 
paid it a public and legal reverence. 

In fine, such was the height to which luxury and magni- 
ficence at last attained, that it is probable no modern city 
can be compared with Rome ; which exceeded in splen- 
dour all that we are told of the power and glory of the 
Caliphs, or the greatest brilliancy of the Mogul court 

The Scriptures tell us, " Let them that stand in high 
places take heed lest they fall." How can such luxury 
reign without its horrible counterpoise of poverty, base- 
ness, venality, and all loathsome corruptions'? There the 
feio are rich, and happy, and gay— but the many are 
very wretched ; and a dark host of them stand ever ready 
for insurrection, revolt, and treason. Among the people 
I speak of, the public morals were already ruined ; and a 
few wicked and daring men found it an easy thing to 
trample under foot a base and servile crew, who, the viler 
they were, by so much more were they readier instru- 
ments of public wrong. 



21 

i have no time to dwell upon the causes and transac- 
tions of the civil wars of Caius Marius and Lucius Sylla, 
which were the first lapses of the state. Mummius, Sylla, 
and Lucullus, had brought into the city the riches of the 
east; all their arts, their dainties, their soft and effeminate 
manners, were imported and naturalized : but the litera- 
ture came with them. The troubles in Greece had driven 
out many of the philosophers and learned teachers of 
that country ! who finding themselves liberally patronised 
in Rome, began to pursue there, with great success, the 
same modes of instruction which had rendered their na- 
tive land so illustrious. Not Rome only, but Italy, was 
abundantly supplied with these teachers, and there is 
good reason to think that there was a very general 
diffusion of knowledge among the middling and better 
classes of people ; and the means of acquiring education 
abundant and very good. I cannot here dilate upon the 
methods of education then in use ; I can only remark, 
that a mode which produced such rich fruits as those 
we discover in the minds of certain of the citizens, 
could not have been without excellent principles — nor 
does the history of the education of Cicero, or the methods 
so eloquently detailed by Tacitus, fail to excite our regret, 
that some of their excellent points are not more imitated 
among ourselves. 

Yet. alas for human nature ! while the literature, and 
every liberal art, and pursuit, which distinguished the 
Augustan age, were rising to still greater heights of ex- 



22 

cellence — the inroads of luxury and the sacra auri fames, 
and the dissolution of manners, came in also as a roaring 
flood. And thus has it ever been with our race ; we roll, 
like Sysiphus, the enormous weight of society upwards, 
and when we have almost attained the broad platform 
where it ought to repose for ever, it rushes down head- 
long, and leaves man ever ready, and ever obedient to the 
task to which fate hath bound him, to roll it np again. 

But let us continue the thread of this discourse, some- 
what broken perhaps in the last two or three paragraphs. 
We are too apt to suppose, that the compass, the press, 
and the steam engine, the boast of our times, by the great 
facilities they give us in acquiring the means of subsist- 
ence, information, and pleasure, carry us to an immeasura- 
ble distance beyond our predecessors of an ancient date. 

They had a commerce, not so extensive as ours, but 
it answered the calls of an unequalled luxury. Their 
gallies sought the shores of Malabar and Ceylon, and they 
flew across the Mediterranean and along the coasts of 
the Atlantic, impelled by the sails and the oars of the 
trireme and the quadrireme ; they had not the needle, 
but some of their voyages could not be exceeded in 
speed by the Great Western herself. They had no 
railways, but their beautiful roads were covered with 
couriers riding one hundred and twenty miles a day. 
They had no press, but they had thousands of scribes, 
who made volumes very plentiful. Tyrannion, one of the 
freedmen of Sylla, got together in Rome a library of 



23 

thirty thousand volumes; and LucuUus collected in his 
gorgeous mansion, a vast library, which he generously 
opened for the use of the public, as our Franklin Library 
is now. But I must omit much that I hoped to have 
time to say. 

Let me call your attention to their houses. Their 
public buildings are described in such a manner as to 
make their plans familiar to us, and enable us to judge 
of their appearance, even did not the remains of some of 
them still linger on earth, resisting the shock of earth- 
quakes, the gnawing tooth of time, and the rude assaults 
of barbarians. In Rome, the Pantheon remains entire, 
the most perfect work of that old time now on earth. 
The dome of the Pantheon is half of a sphere, one hun- 
dred and forty-three feet in diameter. The top of this 
vast vault rises to the height of one hundred and forty-three 
feet above its pavement ; some ten or fifteen feet higher 
than the top of the lightning rod of the steeple in Arch 
street. It was erected fifteen years before the birth of 
Christ, and yet it stands on the spot where it was dedi- 
cated to Jupiter the Avenger, and all the gods. St. 
Sophia at Constantinople, St. Peter's at Rome, and 
St. Paul's at London, are all much inferior to this one, 
whose span greatly exceeds any other in the world. 
Remember that it has stood since before the revelation 
by the gospel, and is now in such preservation, as to be 
constantly employed as a Christian church. I should 
think that no person of sensibility could enter it without 



24 

a feeling of solemn awe, and a thousand gushing remem- 
brances of the scenes that have passed within and 
around it. A friend, who lately made a thorough 
examination of it, informs me that the interior of 
the edifice is richly encrusted with foreign marbles of 
the most beautiful colours, and the sublimity of the 
effect produced by the single central light cannot fail to 
excite the admiration of every beholder. 

Such buildings are not erected by an unpolished and 
uneducated people. But I refer you to Taylor & Cressy '& 
Architectural Antiquities of Rome, and instead of describ- 
ing it further, I ask, would it not be easy to imagine the 
scene presented by its interior when opened for the first 
time to the public inspection, crowded as it was with the 
statues of the mythological hosts, none of them, perhaps, 
inferior in beauty to the Roman Apollo, which, for aught 
we know, may have stood in one of the niches of the tem- 
ple. Methinks I can look down upon its beautiful pave- 
ment, and see there a martial and diplomatic assembly that 
are come to gaze at and admire the fane. Yonder, perhaps, 
are Britons from the shores of theHumber or the slopes 
of Penmanmaur. There is a band of Gauls from Lutetia 
Parissiorum, or Lugdunum on the Rhone ; hardy Germans 
who may have witnessed the slaughter of Varus and 
his legions : — that splendid cor tege, jewelled and turbaned, 
comes from the court of Tigranes, and have brought back 
the eagles that Crassus lost, when he fell so far from Rome, 
the scene of his pride. Here are Numidians familiar with 



25 

the sandy whirlwind, the red sirnmoon, and the awful 
solitudes of Shahaara ; Abyssinians from beyond the cata- 
racts of the Nile ; Lusitanians who have wandered on the 
banks of the Douro or Tagus ; and Iberians from the 
golden shores of the Guadalquivir. You may imagine 
the nations of the whole earth represented in that mag- 
nificent hall, in their various costume and arms, where the 
toga and the laticlave alone betoken the presence of the 
world's masters; — while the plumed helm, the chlarays, 
the iorica, and the short two-edged sword, " a better, 
never rested on a soldier's thigh'^ indicate the munifi- 
cent founder of the pile : it is Marcus Agrippa, the wisest 
minister and most successful warrior of the day, the friend 
and adviser of Augustus from his youth upwards. The 
whole work was built at his sole cost, in discharge of 
his vow at the battle of Actium. There moves Cilnius 
Maecenas, the patron of letters ; of an ancient and regal 
line ; distinguished as much for his wisdom and humanity, 
as for his generous promotion of every liberal art, design, 
or sentiment. Plancus and Pollio are there ; and that 
plain, unassuming person, clad in the white robe lati- 
claved of the senatorial rank, v/ith a face prominently 
beautiful, is Augustus himself. Upon his arm hangs his 
beloved sister Octavia, the most beautiful woman in 
Rome, while near him walks the youthful Marcellus, the 
destined heir of the throne, the hope of the Nations. 
Yonder, in their train, are seen the gentle Maro — the 
jocund Horatius Flaccus, the modest Propertius, Ovid, 



26 

not yet banished from Rome ; while Musa, the faithful 
physician, was not absent from the imposing scene. 

Many of these persons, like Agnppa, had already erect- 
ed, or did afterwards construct, at their own cost, buildings 
of the greatest magnificence, for the public use, or adorn- 
ment; and Augustus always exercised an imperial libe- 
rality in the constant employment of the artisans and 
artists of his capital ; which he beautified and enriched 
with numerous structures worthy of such a founder. He 
made it his boast upon his death-bed, that he had con- 
verted the Rome which he found of brick, into a city of 
marble. 

I need only allude to the Coraus Aurea, or golden 
palace of Nero, whose front was a mile in extent, and 
whose splendours of architecture, sculpture, painting, 
decoration, and whatever constitutes the highest luxury, 
or profusest display of wealth, appear to have exceeded 
the descriptive powers of the time ; and which a wiser 
and severer monarch caused to be wholly demolished, 
as too grand and glorious a habitation for any being of a 
mortal mould. The palace of the Vatican, which now 
occupies a part of its scite, notwithstanding its Sistine 
chapel, its Belvidere, and all the riches of art they en- 
close, is probably tame in comparison with the building 
which Nero erected on that spot. 

But not alone from their public buildings are we to 
deduce our opinions as to the cultivation and refinement 
of these people. Although their dwelling houses are 



27 

crumbled to the dust, or lie buried beneath the soil, 
Vitruvius has told us of their construction, both for the 
town and the country. As to their country life and 
residences, can we imagine a more charming spot than 
the Tusculum of Cicero 1 Where, in any of our clubs, 
soirees, or saloons, shall we find such noctes coenoeque 
deorum 7 ! ! Or read the two letters which the younger 
Pliny addressed to his friends, Gallus, the 17th of the 
second Book, and Apollinaris, the 6th of the fifth Book, 
for full descriptions of his two villas of Tuscum and Lau- 
rentinum. Imagine the delights and comforts that he 
there describes, and conceive of the owner, as he cer- 
tainly was, one of the most humane, cultivated, and 
elegant gentlemen that ever lived in any age of the 
world. These villas have been fully explained and re- 
stored by Mr. Robert Castell, in his precious folio, the 
" Villas of the Ancients," published in 1728. Permit 
me, in order to give you a more graphic account than 
any I could present, of the mode of life among them, to , 
read to you some extracts of Pliny's first letter of the 
third Book. One addressed to Calvisius : — 

" I never spent my time more agreeably, I think, than 
I did lately with Sp urinna. I am so much pleased with 
the uninterrupted regularity of his life, that, if ever I 
should arrive at old age, there is no man whom I would 
sooner choose for my model. I look upon order in hu- 
man actions, especially at that advanced period, with the 
same sort of pleasure as I behold the settled course of 



28 

the heavenly bodies. In youth, indeed, there is a certain 
irregularity and agitation by no means unbecoming; bi»t 
in age, when business is unseasonable, and ambition in- 
decent, all should be calm and uniform. This rule Spu- 
rinna religiously observes throughout his whole conduGt. 
Even in those transactions which one might call minute 
and inconsiderable, did they not occur every day, he 
observes a certain periodical season and method. The 
first part of the morning he devotes to study ; at eight, 
he dresses and walks about three miles, in which he en- 
joys at once contemplation and exercise. At his return, 
if he has any friends with him in his house, he enters 
upon some polite and useful topic of conversation ; if 
he is alone, somebody reads to him, and sometimes, too, 
when he is not, if it is agreeable to his company. When 
this is over, he reposes himself, and then again takes a 
book, or falls into some discourse even more entertain- 
ing and instructive. He afterwards takes the air in his 
chariot, either with his wife, who is a lady of uncommon 
merit, or with some friend — a happiness which lately was 
mine. How agreeable, how noble is the enjoyment of 
him in that hour of privacy ! ! You would fancy you 
were hearing some -worthy of ancient times, inflaming 
your breast with the most heroic examples, and instruct- 
ing your mind with the most exalted precepts, which 
yet he delivers with so modest an air that there is not 
the least appearance of dictation in his conversation. 
When he has thus taken a tour of about seven miles, he 



29 

gets out of his chariot and walks a mile more, after 
which he returns home, and either reposes himself, or 
retires to his study," &c. 

Pliny goes on to tell of his excellent taste for poetry, 
which he composed in the lyric manner both in Greek 
and Latin, and of the surprising ease and spirit of gaiety 
which ran throughout his verses. 

Spurinna's baths were ready in the winter about three 
o'clock, and in summer about two. We are also told of 
his daily exercises in the sun — his game at tennis, by 
which he counteracted the effects of old age — his bath — 
his repose after it on a couch, while a book was read to 
him. " You sit down to an elegant repast, which is 
served up ia pure and antique plate. He has an 
equipage for his sideboard, in Corinthian metal, which 
is his pleasure, not his pride. At his table he is fre- 
quently entertained with comedians, that even his very 
amusements may be seasoned with good sense." Pliny 
says, that although the supper was continued until the 
night was somewhat advanced, yet his old friend pro- 
longed the feast with so much affability, that it was never 
esteemed tedious. The venerable old man, by this 
mode, seems to have prolonged to the seventy-eighth 
year, a life in which no appearance of old age was dis- 
coverable except the wisdom. 

Now, there is a plain unvarnished tale ; and upon it I 
submit to your decision, whether, under this representa- 
tion of the manners and customs of that old Roman, we 



30 

have so great a right to boast the pre-eminence of our 
modern elegance over that of the ancients. Who among 
us can boast of any thing more elegant in mannier, or 
more reasonable and judicious in conduct, than this life 
of Spurinna 1 

I am sure, that viewing him as labouring under all 
the disadvantages of the paganism by which he was 
surrounded, his conduct shines in comparison with that 
of many of our contemporaries. 

May we not proclaim, as perhaps a shining exception 
among our v^^ealthy men, the elegant hospitality, the 
public spirit, the modest unassuming conduct of one of 
our excellent citizens, who, with the princely liberality 
of an Herodes Atticus, has not awaited the summons of 
the herald of death, to translate to his own country what- 
ever it was possible to gather together of the arts and 
sciences, and elegance of the East, and who seeks only 
to employ his well-earned riches in the improvement and 
advancement of his native land 1 

But why go back to Vitruvius or Pliny, for an idea of 
the domestic manners of the Romans '? Let us open the 
graphic pages of Sir William Gell, or unfold the great 
volumes of Piranesi, or the magnificent tomes on Hercu- 
laneum, published by order of the King of Naples ! — Nay, 
let us go in person to Pompeii (I never was there,) and let 
us walk in the streets ; knock at the portals, and enter the 
houses of a Roman city, which was buried under the 
ashes and scoriae of Vesuvius, in the year 79, — and has 



31 

recently been uncovered, with its iiouses, furniture, pic- 
tures, statues, coins, utensils, and even the dead men's 
bones of the thousand persons who perished in that 
dreadful day. There is the forum where they met ; — 
the temples where they worshiped ; — the theatres in 
which they enjoyed the combat or the comedy ; and the 
baths in which they daily purified their persons. Ex- 
amine the house of the Dioscuri ; — the residence of the 
tragic poet ; tread on their unequaled mosaic pavements; 
and see their buildings, as restored by Sir William Gell, 
and then say whether they had not the art of living ; but 
do not form your opinion of the metropolis, and measure 
that city by the Porapeian scale, as you would not take 
your notions of Philadelphia from an inspection of 
Frankford or Darby. 

If any stranger comes to our city, his friend endea- 
vours to make his visit agreeable, by showing him all 
the objects worthy of note that are collected here — and 
he drives with him along some of the favourite roads, 
as along Turner's lane, the Falls, or the Banks of Schuyl- 
kill. How surely will the Philadelphian, on such an 
occasion, point out to the stranger the beauties of those 
pleasing landscapes ; the fertile soil ; the rich agricul- 
tural product, and the country residences of our wealthy 
men. But let us also hear what the elder Pliny has said of 
his own country, in the third Book, where he calls it 
the foster mother and parent of all lands — chosen, in 
the providence of the Deity, as the centre to which all 



32 

the scattered and divided communities of the earth 
should turn and tend, in order that rudeness and bar- 
barism might yield to the sway of gentle manners and 
wholesome laws ; and the various discordant and savage 
languages and dialects of the world, give place to the 
language of Rome, which should thus become, briefly, 
the single and common country of all mankind. Mark 
with what pride he speaks of Rome itself! Note his ad- 
miration at the happy and beautiful pleasantness of 
Campania ! What an exultant description of agricul- 
tural beauty and exuberance ! A landscape of smiling 
loveliness — so mild a sky — so gentle a temperature — so 
rich a profusion of streams and springs — such a perpe- 
tual salubriousness — such vast herds of magnificent 
cattle — pastures filled with fleeces innumerable — such 
shady groves — such sunny hills — such deep, and dark, 
and solemn woods — such breezes from the mountains — 
fields waving with grain, and olive plantations fat with 
delicious oil. So many seas, ports, and the bosom of 
the land, laid open to the commerce of the world. — These 
are nearly the expressions of Pliny himself, and do they 
not suffice to show that even the rich valley of Chester, 
along which we whirl with the speed of a rocket, beauti- 
ful and rich as it is, and proud as we Pennsylvanians 
may well be of it, can hardly surpass, especially in its 
architectural features, the Campania Felix of the Au- 
gustan age 1 

Mr. Gibbon, whose long and patient researches in his- 



33 

tory gave him a title to speak as with authority, was of 
opinion, and I use his language, that " if a man were 
called to fix the period in the history of the world, in 
which the condition of the human race was most happy 
and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that 
which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the acces- 
sion of Commodus, in which the whole enormous extent 
of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, 
tempered by wisdom and justice." 

Our own is the boasted age of the march of mind I 
and we too readily look with contempt upon the olden 
time which has joined the years beyond the flood. May 
we safely boast of the age in which we live 1 What ! are 
the volcanic fires of the French revolution quite put 
out — extinguished — dead 1 Those lurid fires, which, 
during our youth, manhood, and maturer age, have 
seared and scorched almost every human work and de- 
vice of policy in Christervdom, are but smouldering under 
the ashes of the nations, — ready to shoot again their 
broad flames to the mid-heavens ; and the convulsion 
and earthquake shall shake the whole frame of society, 
when the trumpet call to battle shall renew the strife 
of principles never yet settled upon their immutable 
bases since the overthrow of the Roman freedom. Liberty 
is inseparable from the representative principle ! Man- 
kind know that everlasting truth ; nor will the universal 
mind of man, that is fermenting like a yesty ocean, be 
long bound down by the political fetters, which, like the 
3 



34 

chaiiiti of Xerxes, are vainly thrown into the boiling 
surge. The inillenial sun of freedom shall shine not 
here alone, where we bask in its blessed beam — but upon 
the uttermost parts of the earth and the sea, where free- 
dom's fight is not yet over ! In that day, to use the 
lines of Virgil — 

Heu ! quantum inter se bellum si lumina vitse, 
Attigerint, quantas acies, stragemque ciebunt ! 

The Roman people once knew what liberty is ; they 
were the freest and best represented people on earth — 
they were the wisest and happiest of men — they were 
generous, just, economical — as individuals, content with 
little — but rapacious and insatiable in desire for the 
glory and perpetuity of Rome ! Why is it, that after 
beholding such a vision, such a surpassing show of great- 
ness and peace, we are constrained to look upon its fall ? 
a mighty fail, dragging down, and crushing, and maim- 
ing, and blinding the world ! Rome grew great, and was 
happy while her citizens were virtuous, orderly, sober, and 
of simple manners. Then the greatest good of the great- 
est number was the aim and end of her policy. Then the 
representative principle was truly understood and brought 
into operation. Then, in short, it was, that liberty and 
law, in a happy concordance, made every man safe, and 
left him happy under his own vine and his own fig tree. 

But Mummius brought home the enervating elegan- 
cies of Achaia; Sylla broke the spirit of his country- 
men, and imported the vices and accomplishments of 



35 

Attica and the East. Lucuilus, his officers and troops, 
introduced the wealth and effeminacy of Asia. Pompey 
and Crasfus were inestimably rich and incredibly extra- 
vagant and luxurious; while the power and popularity of 
Julius Cffisar were founded on his personal merits, and 
the slaughter or captivity of twelve hundred thousand 
men in his wars. The contagion of their example over- 
threw all remaining respect for the rigorous manners and 
wholesome usages of the republican times ! Vices the 
most frightful began to stalk in the open streets at noon- 
day ; and a smile or a jest were the sharpest censures of 
a depraved public opinion, which ought to have over- 
whelmed and withered with its scorn, the perpetrators of 
horrors which could not for a moment be endured in any 
Christian community. Let us then not desire for our 
country overflowing wealth. It is corrupting in its nature, 
and the sacred writer tells us it is the root of all evil. 
No people are so happy as those among whom modera- 
tion and a just medium of riches diffuses among all 
classes a sort of equality of competence — the surest safe- 
guard of the public morals and of the public peace. 

Look back for a moment to the times of the gallant 
republicans — the Scipios, the Fabricius, the Fabius, and 
Regulus, See virtue, order, decency, respect for the laws, 
walking hand in hand with public prosperity ; and turn 
again your eyes to the time when that bloody, brutal, and 
ignorant Marius, with the heart of a hyena, as hard as 
Danton's and as black as Marat's, trampled down all 



36 

forms of law, and quelled in his own bosom all tiie gush- 
ings of a natural humanity. Such a shedder of blood 
as he, was worthy of the people whom he scourged, 
and who tamely permitted him to die in his bed at 
Rome. 

Judge you what was the tone of that public opinion 
which subjected the citizens, long, and like fattened sheep, 
to the dispassionate dolee far niente humour with which 
Sylla the tiger first played with, and then killed them. 
This was the man, who, when he had already put to 
death some tens of thousands of the friends of his enemy, 
and was fearfully entreated with the words, " Oh, Sylla ! 
when may the slaughter cease — who may expect to be 
safe"?" — ^calmly replied : <' O ! I scarcely indeed know, yet, 
whom I shall save." The usurper exercised supreme 
dictation for years, and, when wearied with power, con- 
temptuously threw down his bowie knife of administration, 
and without a feeling of fear, walked about in the streets 
which had been red with the blood of his slain, and jost- 
ling the crowds whose relations and friends had been his 
victims. Were these Romans 1 What cause is there to 
wonder at the facility with which the triumvirate of 
Pompey, Crassus, and Csesar was established ] or the 
dictatorship of Julius. Surely the aspirations of Marcus 
Brutus, of Caius Cassius, and Tully, after the re-esta- 
blishment of the old constitution, were vain. Their 
efforts were fruitless ; and their eloquence in its behalf 
was the expiring voice of liberty ; and though sweet as 



37 

the last song of the swan, it was the plaintive wail of 
death ! 

The conspiracy of Catiline; the violence of Clodius ; 
the dictatorship and assassination of Caesar ; the bloody 
triunavirs, Antony, Lepidus, and Octavius, were but the 
successive lapses of the fall; and, to close as it were the 
grave of freedom, then came the altar of Perugia, that 
frightful scene, which struck terror and paleness into all 
mortal hearts, and is scarcely to be whispered on earth 
now: and, lastly, the battle of Actium, which, thirty-one 
years before the birth of our Lord, delivered over the whole 
empire, its people, institutions, treasures, destiny, into the 
hands of Octavius Caesar, Prince of the Senate, Consul, 
Augustus, Perpetual Tribune of the People, and High 
Priest of the religion of Rome. With his person thus ren- 
dered sacred ; with two hundred and fifty thousand dis- 
ciplined legionary soldiers; with his brave Agrippa and 
his wise and elegant Maecenas, he began a reign, of which 
it has often been said, that it ought never to have com- 
menced, or should have had no end. 

The whole field of biography, even if carefully gleaned, 
scarcely yields a character like that of Augustus Caesar. 
In early life, addicted to the quiet pursuits and human- 
ising pleasures of literature, he abandoned them under 
the incitements of ambition, or the impulses of neces- 
sity ; and having, like a young and unpractised tiger, once 
tasted of blood, he seemed to lap it afterwards by a natu- 
ral and instinctive appetite. I should transcend my 



38 

limits were I to attempt a sketch of his enormities, com-- 
mitted before he attained the supreme power, and it 
would be unjust to withhold from one, even so long 
numbered among the dead, the praise of having wise- 
ly, humanely, and paternally administered the govern- 
ment which he usurped — if indeed one may have praise 
for acting well upon a basis of usurpation, where per- 
haps the only righteous step that can be taken, is the one 
that leads down from the throne. Are we not indebted 
to a patron of letters for the change of character which 
recalled Augustus to reason and humanity 1 He sal one 
day on his rostrum, judging a great number of criminals 
who had been brought before him ; and after condemning, 
with the utmost indifference, this one to the Tarpeian 
rock, that one to beheading, and others to various cruel 
modes of death, which seemed to excite the astonishment 
of the dense crowd who were looking on at his proceed- 
ings, Maecenas, who could not even approach his master 
for the press, wrote on a slip of paper, " Surge tandem, 
carnifex .'" " Have done, thou butcher .'" The paper 
was handed over heads to Octavius, who read it, imme- 
diately dismissed the assembly, and from that hour was 
a better man. 

This incident, which does honour to the minister, and, 
perhaps, no less to the monarch, was followed by no evil 
consequences to Mgecenas. That cautious man perceived 
clearly that the surest method of retaining the enormous 
power which Octavius had usurped, and at the same time 



39 

of preserving his prince from dangerous reactions against 
his person, was, by leading him to the rigid practice of 
the administrative virtues, clemency and justice; both of 
which had been outraged in his early career. He saw 
that, though the dread of military execution might, for 
a time, hold in subjection a vast population, yet a reign 
of terror must always be short lived, because it is intole- 
rable. The Romans were flattered an(^ soothed, therefore, 
by the preservation of the forms of the old republic, while 
all the substance of power was in the hands of the empe- 
ror. Doubtless it was to soften and tame the spirit of the 
prince, that Maecenas summoned about him that brilliant 
court — brilliant not by a throne of royal state, rich with 
the gold of Ormus or of Ind, but shining with intel- 
lectual light ; such a splendour as might emanate only 
from the master spirits of the world. Hence the elegant 
and warlike Plancus was placed near him ; the eloquent 
and gallant Pollio : the accomplished but vicious Sallust ; 
the witty good-tempered Horace, and many other men of 
distinction ; but above them all, prince or courtier, Pub- 
lius Virgilius Maro ! What are gems, barbaric pearl, and 
gold, compared with him 1 A being so gentle, modest, 
learned, good ! A soul so wrapt and on fire with poetical 
inspiration, that he, of all men living, could alone produce 
the iEncid — the poem which is second, if indeed second, 
only to the verses of Homer. It has been read since the 
beginning of the Christian era, and still addresses itself 
with increasing power to the wonder, the admiration of 



40 

mankind. To read it alone, would repay the labour of 
learning its language. It is not possible to give in modern 
language full force to the poetry y the divine conceptions 
of the beauty of nature, and the tenderness of sentiment 
which are every where scattered with a lavish hand, like 
pearls and diamonds, through the inestimable works of 
Virgil. I cannot refrain from offering you the translation 
of a passage from Visconti, as just in its criticism, as it 
is beautiful in its diction ; he says : 

'* However, a greater design seemed henceforth to 
occupy the thoughts of Virgil : he meditated the produc- 
tion of an epic poem, the happily chosen subject of which 
was connected with the Homeric Epopoeia ; but he de- 
sired to celebrate in it the origin, religion, glory, and 
greatness of Rome, her vicissitudes, and particularly 
Augustus, who had first organised the monarchy. The 
tradition which deduced the founder of Rome and family 
of Csesar from the blood of Ascanius and .^neas, point- 
ed out the hero of his song. Those who are acquainted 
with the theories of poetry must have remarked that the 
Latin poet knew how, by a surprising skill, to put to- 
gether the two poems of Homer, and producing from 
them a single one, to add to it, even while imitating it, 
new beauties of a higher order ; and that if the father 
of poetry is for ever above and beyond all rivalry in the 
abundance, sweetness, and nobleness of his diction, the 
grandeur of his invention, as well as by the majestic 
simplicity of his personages, Virgil has occupied a station 



41 

nearest to him by giving us a poem which never larf» 
guishes, which is more varied and pathetic than his 
model ; in which the rapidity of the recital does not en- 
feeble either the truth of his paintings or the force of his 
impassioned expressions. Formed by the poets of the 
Greek scene posterior to Homer, the sensitive soul of 
Virgil has seized upon the most beautiful movements of 
the dramatic poesy ; and his genius and his taste per- 
fected by the study of all that was most beautiful in the 
two languages, have enriched the ^neid with multi- 
tudinous reminiscences of those antique beauties which 
seduce the imagination of the reader, and do not even 
permit him to regret the sublime simplicity of the Iliad 
and the Odyssey." 

I should willingly defer to many of my hearers, as 
more learned or feeling critics, and riper scholars than I 
can pretend to be ; yet I might challenge all the poetry 
of all ages to excel some of the passages of the sixth 
book of the ^neid, which he read with his own lips to 
Augustus, surrounded by his family. Where, in the 
whole range of poetical inspiration, shall we look for a 
more benign and graceful spirit than that which, like a 
very Urania, " -walks in beauty,^'' in the lines : 

" Principio coelum ac terras, camposque liquentes. 
Lucentemque globum lunse," &c. 

Or where shall we seek out a verse that moves with 



42 

a loftier stride, or glows with a more patriot fervour tiian 
the celebrated 

" Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera, 
Credo equidem : vivos ducent de marmore vultus ; 
Orabunt causas melius; ccslique meatus 
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent : 
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento : 
Hsec tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem, 
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." 

The Iconographie Romaine contains, among its pre- 
cious engravings, a full length miniature portrait of Vir- 
gil, copied from the illuminated page of a manuscript of 
the fourth century, and which is supposed by the learned 
archaologist to be, perhaps, a true representation of the 
Roman poet. T should regret to be convinced that his 
arguments for its genuineness and credibility are not 
well founded, for it is pleasing to have impressed upon 
the mind's eye, " the very face, the body of the man, his 
form and pressure," who from schoolboy days to life's 
present hour, comes over the memory and the affections, 
like a being celestial in excellence — an instructer in vir- 
tue ; one who, in thought, word and deed, seemed designed 
of heaven " to raise the genius and to mend the heart." 

Could I possibly give you a better idea of the cultiva- 
tion of manners in the Augustan age, or of the sensibilr 
ty of the people to the power of intellect and virtue, 
than by reminding you, that when Virgil entered the 



theatre, he blushed and was bewildered to find that the 
assembled thousands seated there, spontaneously and un- 
solicited, rose up to do him reverence 1 Shall I not say, too, 
that he was rewarded with a fortune of half a million of 
dollars, and spent the latter part of his life, too short, alas ! 
upon a beautiful estate near Naples, beloved by troops 
of friends, and cherished till his last hour by his munifi- 
cent patron, the emperor. The tomb of Virgil, near 
Posillippo, is one of the shrines which the wayfarer of 
that region loves to approach : a shrine, decorated not 
with the martial trophies of victorious war, and bloody 
laurels, but with those green bays, which grow ever 
fresher and fairer with the immortal youth that Maro 
won by his deathless verse. 

But I must return to my subject, from which I have 
been enticed away by the fascination of his name. 

I cannot, in a short lecture, even sketch out the great 
transactions of that first imperial reign, nor perhaps does 
the design of your lectures include more than an indication 
of subjects worthy of your study or curiosity. Those 
events are delightfully detailed by many writers, and I 
gladly commend to the perusal of every one present the 
work of Mr. Black well — The Court of Augustus — which 
(an opprobrium of booksellers) is out of print ; but which 
is one of the richest productions of the British press, 
and is ardent in all the praise and aspiration of true liber- 
ty that beseems a true and freeborn Englishman. 

Among the interesting events of Octavius's life, are 



44 

the war of Mutina, the defeat of Antony, and the flight 
of that remarkable man towards the western Alps, his 
junction with Lepidiis and return to Italy, accompanied 
by his powerful legions and the remains of his own 
troops. These are stories full of interest for their inci- 
dents and their political importance. 

It was by the intervention of Lepidus that the cele- 
brated conference near Bologna took place. In the 
middle of the narrow river Rhenus, which flows by the 
walls of Bologna, there was a small island. The three 
chieftains, Lepidus, Antony, and Octavius, had led their 
several armies into view of each other, and encamped them 
separately on the banks of the stream. Bridges were laid 
to the island, reaching from the opposite shores ; and Le- 
pidus entered first. Having examined every part of the 
ground, and finding no treason there, he gave the signal 
agreed upon, when Antony and Octavius immediately 
approached from the opposite banks, and met in the 
midst of the island. The legions, at a distance, gazed 
in awe-hushed silence, while these three men, having 
carefully scrutinised each other's persons in search of 
concealed daggers, sat down, Octavius in the midst, and 
Lepidus and Antony on either hand, and began a con- 
ference which continued for three days. 

There, alone, overheard by no mortal ear, the voice of 
conscience silenced in their breasts ; by the most shocking 
concessions to each other's revenge, pride, and interest ; 
they divided the empire amongst themselves, and esta- 



45 

blished themselves a triumvirate to restore the republic. 
That is to say, they resolved, by means of the military 
force then under their control, to seize the public trea- 
sure, to put to death by the sword three hundred senators 
and two thousand knights, the best and most patriotic citi- 
zens of Rome ; and to abolish the whole system of govern- 
ment ; thus trampling under foot the sacred rights of 
their fellow citizens— those privileges and franchises 
which had descended to them through so many ages of 
order and law. 

This dreadful and wicked conspiracy against their 
country — one of the most awfully important transac- 
tions on the whole record of human events — is most elo- 
quently related by Appian, the Alexandrian. You may 
there learn how these men rushed from their detestable 
conference in the Rhenus, like destroying demons, to the 
capital ; the terror that preceded their march ; the closing 
of the gates guarded by their centurions; the setting up 
of the lists of the proscribed in public places ; and the let- 
ting loose upon the inhabitants of a brutal soldiery. You 
will there see how a great dark cloud of terror brooded 
for days over that immense metropolis. Even the pen 
of Thomas Carlyle, dipped as it is in the blended hues of 
the bow and the storm cloud, and practised in the delini- 
ation of revolutionary scenes, could not paint with more 
distinctness and force the enormities of that cruel perse- 
cution. The heads of Rome's bravest and best were 
brought into Rome's great forum, and cast down at the 



46 

foot cf Antony's rostrum, as he sat there to keep the tale 
of blood, and to pay <he price stipulated for the ghastly 
faces of his former companions and countrymen. Had 
the fatal mandate gone forth only against that one man 
— the orator, philosopher and gentleman — M. T. Cicero, 
it would deserve the execration of mankind ; but the 
sword did execute its dreadful mission, and we stand 
aghast at scenes ever to be abhorred. The deadly glare of 
that scene may show to every friend of liberty how fatal a 
thing it is to entrust the power of the sword into hands not 
amenable to law ; and from that dark cloud is thundered, 
even in our ears, the solemn warning, that every violation 
of law is an injury done or threatened to every citizen. 
We may learn from it, that a party spirit that points 
to this or that man as the load star of political safety, and 
draws us to promote his particular views as the only 
means of national welfare, is treason against duly, and a 
gross libel upon the intelligence, virtue, and capacity of 
man. Among free people the contest should be, not for 
men, hut for principles. Would that among us that par- 
tisan spirit which is the bane of all free governments, 
might perish and disappear for ever, and that our con- 
stitution and laws, written down in every man's heart, 
might reign supreme ovet our happy country. 

If the persons who truly loved the old constitution, 
had acted conformably to these views, we should never 
have read of the war of Mutina, of Sextus Pompey, of 
Perusia, or of Actium : they were, like the Girondins, a 



47 

numerous and inteilectual band, whose theories of poli- 
tics were pure, and their aims good : but it is pitiable to 
see how they fell away, one after another, from the honest 
party, of which Cicero became the head, and through 
weakness and dissentions, permitted the total extinction 
of the representative system of the empire. That sacred 
principle which had been firmly established in Italy, 
upon the transfer thither of the institutions of Solon, 
was quenched, cast down, and trodden under foot, a fatal 
mischief for so many centuries. 

It cannot be denied that the reign of Augustus was 
henceforth brilliant and prosperous for the empire. Yet 
what lover of law but must condemn the men who over- 
threw the republic. Julius Caesar had power to renovate 
the commonwealth — he could have re-established and 
purified the representative system, and recovered in a 
measure even the public morals, by means of the censorial 
attribute, with which he was clothed. But ambition en- 
thralled his corrupted nature, and hushed in his soul all 
the wholesome and natural aifections which had moved 
and enlarged the spirit of his ancestors. True it is, 
ambition paid him well with power and fame. True it 
is, that he is even now known as a great warrioi, a wise 
administrator, an elegant and accurate historian, beautiful 
in person, eloquent in debate, and brave as his sword. 
Yet history has paid his true reward, in telling us, that 
he met, for the ruin of his country, an untimely and 
a bloody death, 



48 

Augustus brought the hitherto restless elements of 
strife into quiet subjection, and no consistent attempt was 
made to subvert the strong foundations of his authority. 
Unostentatious, shrinking from the visible exhibition of 
his strength, he exerted it silently but surely ; and pre- 
tending, all his life long, to sigh only for repose and escape 
from the toils of government, he yet retained the reins 
with a grasp that nothing but death could loosen. Agrippa 
often implored him to restore the commonwealth ; but 
no ; he knew better what was good for Rome, and ended 
by transferring the truncheon to Tiberius. Then we 
have a Claudius, and there was a Nero, a Vitellius, a Do- 
raitian, and a long story of woes, attributable to the first 
violators of the laws, whose wickedness drew after it 
every subsequent enormity. 

In tracing up the consequences of the overthrow of 
the commonwealth, we discern that, notwithstanding for 
one hundred and fifty years the state was more splendid, 
vast, and peaceful, than ever before, yet with the sup- 
pression of the free spirit really commenced the gradual 
declension of the empire, until the mighty fabric, rushing 
fast and faster down, fell at last utterly, a broken and 
confused ruin, overspreading the world, and crushing 
beneath its fragments even the mighty energies of the 
human mind. The dark ages, when man became im- 
bruted in ignorance and superstition, Attila, the Sara- 
cens, the crusades, and the feudal system, the slow awak- 
ening of our race from the stupor and delirium of the 



49 

wreck of civilisation, the restoration of letters in Italy, 
and the upward spring of the capacities of mankind 
since the fifteenth century : — it is easy to follow the suc- 
cession of causations. But I must hasten to close a 
theme too expansive for my lecture, but well worthy of 
your contemplation. 

A few observations seem necessary to enable me to 
bring my discourse properly to its termination. 

In all investigations concerning the period under re- 
view, we must be struck with the obtuseness of the moral 
sense of the people, and the almost total absence of the 
principle of honour or probity among them. 

To read the orations, tracts, and correspondence of 
Cicero, is to be convinced that his mind was richly stored 
with knowledge; of an amazing scope and power of reach ; 
of the most exquisite and elaborate cultivation and polish : 
so that, whether we view him as orator, statesman, phi- 
losopher, or writer, we are ready to venerate him as a 
paragon of men. But, alas ! to see how destitute he 
was of probity, of honour; how wavering, truckling, 
and inconstant be was; we are ready to feel humbled 
that our human nature could admit of such a lamentable 
obliquity as is clearly seen in much of his life. The 
same is true of Pompey, of Caesar himself; and, indeed, 
that whole bright galaxy of intelligences that cluster 
on the page of history, is obscured by the moral darkness 
and turpitude of the age. How shall we account for 
this absence of a noble principle from the most eminent 



characters of the times, but by referring to the great 
moral code, not yet received among them 1 The Christian 
religion had not yet quickened, enlightened, and vivified 
the moral aptitudes of mankind. 

It is true, indeed, that, in our own day and generation, 
many of us do live regardless of the dictates of that be, 
neficent scheme, and violate without remorse many of its 
clearest and most dread sanctions. Yet notwithstanding 
the contumacy of some, its domain does extend far and 
wide over the boundaries of Christendom, and it moulds, 
invites, and even coerces, under the vast comprehension 
of its influences, the universal mind and heart of the 
Christian nations. Turning our eyes upon those countries 
where the light of Christianity has not yet shot its glad 
beams, we behold the nations and tribes sunken in the 
grossest ignorance and immorality. Their governments 
are despotisms and tyrannies. Their morals are those 
of Rome, and their mind lies darkling; the torch of 
science is not lighted there. 

But under our moral code, that torch is blazing, and 
is lifted up on high. That code is a pillar of fire by night 
and a glorious cloud by day, which leads us on from con- 
quering, to conquer all the obstacles that oppose our 
exodus from the Egyptian bondage of ignorance and 
sensuality, and shall guide us at last to the victory over 
ourselves, in the subjugation of the passions, and the 
universal establishment of the reign of reason, and jus- 
tice, order, and law. 



51 

It was a part of the plan of this discourse to compare 
our own political institutions with those of the Romans, 
in order that I might set forth wherein this frame of go- 
vernment, under which we live so happy and secure, 
excels all others of ancient or modern date ; but I have 
already transcended my limits, and am chargeable with 
having presented a topic too copious for the hour. I 
pray you, however, to look for my apology, if not to find 
my excuse, in the desire I felt to awaken your attention 
to the department of classical literature, which is too much 
neglected in our modern course of study, or reading. It 
is a magazine so rich and inexhaustible of polite learn- 
ing — contains such wholesome, invigorating, and elegant 
repasts, fitted to promote the intellectual growth, health, 
and strength, and beauty, that I flattered myself the 
mere indication of its direction might excite in some of 
my hearers an appetite more natural than that fastidious 
one, which craves such nourishment as the Paul CUfFords, 
Maltravers, and Sam Wellers, with which the shelves 
are loaded. The intellectual hunger cries to us for bread 
or zjish — shall we give it a stone or a serpent] 

Lastly — seeing that I speak to a mixed audience of 
ladies and gentlemen, I ought to say that I deem not one 
of the fair sex less interested than other members of so- 
ciety, in the political and moral considerations flowing out 
of a view of the subjects on which I have spoken. 1'he 
interference of women in politics is always improper,, if 
not indecent — yel 1 should bu :>orry to omit this occa- 



52 

sion for saying, that I wish every American mother 
might know by rote the whole story of the establishment 
and fall of liberty in Rome ; the vain struggles of our 
fellow creatures to recover their lost rights, even from the 
beginning of the Christian era until now ; the great truth' 
that we have regained them here, in the United States of 
America — and that they are secured in our written con- 
stitution and laws. I would they might all study, and 
know, and justly appreciate that great instrument, — its 
vast import to mankind. I would that every American 
mother might impart to her son its great and solemn les- 
sons — seal them deep in his young afiections, — that the 
love of it might be engrafted upon his very nature, habils, 
and family remembrances — so that she might lead him 
up to the great stage of action, a firm, immovable, and 
invincible defender of it. How can any of us for a mo- 
ment forget that it is the charter of onr peace — the sign 
and seal of our security 1 When it falls, ten thousand 
years may roll over a cheated and degraded race, before 
such another policy of government shall arise upon 
man's longing vision — the bow in the heavens, a har- 
binger and a covenant that God will not be angry with 
man always. 



r 



